Atomic - Pacific War, part 3

"The world is what it is, which isn't much."


"We can sum it all up in one sentence: the civilization of the machine has just achieved its ultimate degree of savagery."

Both of these quotes come from the author, journalist and editor Albert Camus (1913-1960)  in the French revolutionary newspaper Combat in 1945 and refer to the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. They were published August 8, 1945, two days after Hiroshima, one day before the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

After Saipan was conquered American forces were able to send bombers not only over factory and industrial centres, but civilian ones as well. From March 1945 334 bombers attacked Tokyo - destroying over a quarter of the city, killing 83,793 civilians, wounding 40,918 and leaving millions homeless. "By the end of the war sixty-six cities had been attacked from the air and sea." (Japan: A Short History, Misiko Hane, p172).
The poor citizens of Okinawa suffered the wrath of both the Japanese and the Americans as being "hostile" and over one hundred thousand Okinawan civilians died.

The Japanese not only suffered human losses. They lost essential raw materials to the tune of 4 million metric tonnes and 44 million tonnes of crude and refined oil. The entire economy of Japan was miniscule compared the US and the latter did everything they could to cripple it further. And they succeeded. The protracted war and huge losses meant that Japan's economy was in real trouble, even before these devastating air raids.

The Japanese began to think of ways to end the war. In May 1945 the Germans, Japanese allies, surrendered and everything looked even more ominous.

The Allies offered a series of ultimatums for surrender, under the Potsdam Declaration, which the Japanese ignored. President Truman took these as a total rejection and ordered the use of the nuclear bomb.

"On the morning of August 6 the bomber Enola Gay flew over Hiroshima and dropped an atomic bomb with a force of twenty thousand tons of TNT on the center of the city...The victims, those who died instantly and those who died of radiation soon after, numbered about 140,000." (Japan: A Short History, Hane, p174)

                                         Source: UCLA
 

As Camus so eloquently put it - and he was one of the very few journalists world wide to offer such a condemning view on the use of the bomb - it was "the ultimate degree of savagery."


As an historian and as a human, I have to ask why, given the facts outlined in these posts on the war in the Pacific, would America drop the bomb?? Any ideas?
 
Sources:
"Japan: A Short History" Misiko Hane, Oneworld Publishing, 2000
"Camus at Combat: Writing 1944-1947," edited by Jacqueline Lévi-Valensi, Princeton University Press, 2006

The Potsdam Declaration

"On July 26 [1945] the United States, Great Britain and China issued the Potsdam Declaration calling on Japan to end the war on the basis of unconditional surrender. The terms called for elimination from authority those responsible for the war; occupation of Japan; limitation of Japanese sovereignty to the Japanese islands; complete disarmament; punishment of war crimes; political reform; and restriction on Japanese industries."

- "Japan: A Short History," Misiko Hane, Oneworld Publications, 2000.

The Pacific War, part 2

As mentioned in the previous post, Japan and America found themselves at war after Japan aggressively attacked the American Pacific naval base, Pearl Harbour.

So what exactly happened after Pearl Harbour??

Guam, Wake Island, and Hong Kong fell to the Japanese by late December 1941.Singapore fell on February 15, 1942. The Dutch gave way to the aggressive powers of Japan in March 1942 and surrendered the Dutch East Indies. The Japanese still had further Pacific nations in their sight, and this expansion resulted in the Battle of the Coral Sea (May 8, 1942), and the unsuccessful Battle of Midway (June '42). After Midway the Japanese turned back. They then went on to suffer losses and defeats in the Solomon Islands (August '42), the Guadalcanal (forced Japanese withdrawal in February 1943) and later New Guinea (May 1943). The Americans, under General MacArthur also wanted to free the Phillipines from Japanese control.

On the continent, Japan was also suffering losses to the allies (America and Britain) in Burma and in the Chinese War. A million Japanese troops were stationed in China, and over two hundred thousand died during the Burma campaign (October '44-May '45). Unlike the bigger nations, Japan's servicemen weren't unlimited and these losses were costing the Japanese heavily. The tough Japanese spirit was exhibited during the Battle of Saipan (ending July 1944), where the determined forces fought to the bitter end, conducting banzai (Suicidal) charges. This notion of never surrendering or becoming prisoners of war, sadly, also gained momentum amongst the civilian population and over ten thousand civilians committed suicide at the soldiers' urgings.

The Japanese also experienced the devastating loss of Tinian and Guam, both strategic naval and air bases. It was fron Tinian that the planes that dropped the Atomic bombs took off. These losses also put Tokyo at great risk. This battle for key islands on the way to Japan continued. By June 1944 the Japanese had lost 250,000 soldiers whereas the Americans had lost 8,140 and another 29,557 wounded.

Iwo Jima was another strategic island which the Americans gained control over in March 1945. War in Europe was drawing to a close and it seemed as though the Americans (and their allies) were gaining the upper hand in the Pacific. What then, led to the Atomic Bomb???

The Pacific War, part 1

World War 2 ended in Europe in May 1945, however the war in the Pacific was just getting started.


Japan had been involved in the "China Incident" (as they referred to it) since the 1930s. After the great depression, which hit the country hard, Japan was on an expansionist mission. Its leaders had their sights set on gaining access to the Dutch East Indies (Indochina) for its petroleum.

By 1940 Japan's intended allies, Russia and Germany, had dissolved their alliance. Japan tried to persuade Russia to join the triple alliance (Germany, Italy and Japan) but only succeeded in achieving a neutrality pact with the Soviets.

During this time, Japan was having (as was to be expected) trouble with the United States of America. Their main issues included, Japan's alliance with Germany and Japan's involvement in China. In 1940 80% of Japan's oil (which kept its navy afloat, so to speak) came from the USA. "Without access to the major source of oil the Japanese navy's oil reserves were expected to last two years, and a year and a half if Japan were to engage in a full-scale war." ("Japan: A Short History", Mikiso Hane, p162). Once the US placed an oil embargo on Japan, the countdown began.

This was a key reason as to why the military leaders of Japan wanted to gain access to the oil reserves of Indochina. The USA, under President Roosevelt and Secretary Hull,  and Japan were unable to come to terms of agreement regarding the China Incident and Japan's involvement in South East Asia. The Japanese Emperor, Hirohito, wanted to continue diplomatic discussions, however the new Prime Minister (and former War Minister) Tojo was a militarist.

Japan decided that December 8 would be the date for war to be launched in an all out attack on Pearl Harbour, an American base. Remember that the Japanese could not possibly continue a long-scale war (do to the oil embargo) therefore they hoped to have the upper hand by planning the surprise attack on Pearl Harbour. This attack, from a Japanese standpoint, proved to be a success - 18 American naval vessels heavily damagesd, approx. 350 planes destroyed, 2403 Americans dead, 1178 wounded, in comparison to Japanese losses of 29 planes and about 100 casualties.

From a strategic point of view, it was a disaster as now the "beast had been woken" and the otherwise "isolationist" America found itself in a full-fledged war.

Sources:
"Japan: A Short History," Misiko Hane, Oneworld Publications, 2000